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Editorial |
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Challenge the Eviction-Loaded Script of Neo-Liberal ‘Development’
Development’ decrees that some must be sacrificed at the altar of the ‘temples of modern India’ – the dams, the steel plants, the mines, the big industries. But the State will compensate and rehabilitate them, and they mustn’t expect more than their due. That is the common sense that we are brought up on. The image of tribals shot dead, their arms, breasts and genitals chopped off, is something relegated to documentaries – rarely does it appear on the screens of the corporate media channels. Even when it does, the dominant opinion that is peddled is that while such police firing and brutality may be lamentable, but inevitable to enforce the eviction that is in the ’......Full text |
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Commentary |
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Art, Truth & Politics
[ Harold Pinter, British playwright and intrepid anti-imperialist campaigner, won the Nobel Prize for Literature 2005. Ailing from throat cancer and confined to a wheelchair, Pinter nevertheless recorded an acceptance speech that scathingly and accurately exposes the lies told by rulers of the imperialist nations, and eloquently exhorts us to be relentless in our demand for the truth. We carry some excerpts from Harold Pinter’s Nobel Lecture.]
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BJP: Back To Basics
So, the new ‘soft liner’ of Hindutva brigade, the new born Mr. Secular Shri Lal Krishna Advani is the new Prime Ministerial face of the Parivar, while the RSS-handpicked Swayamsevak Rajnath Singh is the new BJP Chief, who has declared his unflinching commitment to the RSS, reasserting the core Hindutva issues -Ram Temple, Uniform Civil Code, Article 370, and “infiltration” ......Full text
50 Days of NDA Rule in Bihar
On December 24, 2005, Gandhi Maidan at Patna hosted the swearing-in ceremony of a new Government in Bihar - the Nitish Kumar-led NDA Government, putting a seal to the 15-year-long reign of Laloo Yadav’s RJD. Laloo Yadav’s defeat was apparent in the February 2005 Assembly elections itself, but had managed to retain the status of the largest party in the state. Moreover, being a significant constituent of the ruling dispensation at the Centre.......Full text
CPI(ML)’s Position on Electoral Reforms
Proportional Representation/ List System
We would welcome a change in the existing first- past-the-post system in favour of some sort of proportional representation or list system so that the electorate can exercise its choice primarily on the basis of political parties and their election manifestoes and the role of individual candidates with criminal antecedents who manage to win elections by unleashing a nefarious nexus of money-power and muscle-power can be minimized, if not eliminated altogether. The eligibility threshold for securing representation in Parliament or State Assemblies should be kept low enough so as not to prevent smaller parties from being represented........Full text
Elementary Education:
Some Old Issues for the New Year
The contradiction between what the government says and what the government does, could not get wider than what is happening in the area of elementary education- which has swallowed up reams of pale green paper in government offices, corporate bond sheets and not to mention the NGO handmade paper. In the muddle, however there is a method.
Educational categories have been confused in the last 16 years of liberalization, particularly in the area of elementary education. The confusion in the lexicon became a means for passing of primary education as elementary education........Full text |
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Public Health |
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Beyond the Battle of Baba vs Brinda:
Issues of Privatisation Threatening Public Health
In the course of a labour struggle in Baba Ramdev’s Divyajyoti Pharmacy, Brinda Karat announced that human and animal bones were being used in the medicines produced in Ramdev’s factory. This dramatic revelation of the skeletons (literally) in Baba’s cupboard did not have the effect of embarrassing the Baba and showcasing the violations of labour laws and consumer-rights regulations in his factory....Full text
User Charges in AIIMS:
Pushing Poor Patients Out of Health Care
At the fag end of the last year, charges of various services were introduced at the country’s premier hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Srikant discusses the implications of this move with Dr. Anoop Saraya, a Professor of Gastroenterology at the AIIMS, who is actively involved in democratic and civil and human rights struggles....Full text |
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Cover Feature |
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Development for The Corporates:
Death and Devastation for the Millions
The year 2006 began with a horrific state-sponsored massacre of tribals in Orissa to make way for the Tata Steel Plant. The tribals continue their struggle against eviction. issues of eviction and displacement have come to the fore, and the paradigm of 'development' favoured by the State must be questioned......Full text |
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Orissa: Killing Fields of Corporate Loot
As a ‘New Year Gift’ to the TATAs, the Orissa police mercilessly butchered 12 tribals and injured many in Kalinganagar industrial area of Jajpur district on January 2. The CPI(ML) investigation team was the first to reach the spot, reaching Kalinganagar on January 4. This team was led by Comrades Kshitish Biswal and Subhendu Sen, the Party State Secretaries of Orissa and Jharkhand respectively, and Comrade Rajaram, member of the Central Committee, along with Orissa State Committee member Radhakant Sethi, Human Rights activist Diwakar Behuria and Mahendra Parida. visited Kalinganagar on January 4. They paid homage to the martyred adivasis at their funeral, and expressed solidarity with the struggling adivasis....Full text |
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Agrarian Labour |
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They’ve only got my limbs, I’ve still got my voice – I can still sing!’:
Agrarian Labour Under Assault
As the AIALA prepares for its National Conference, the mutilation of the limbs of Bant Singh by Congress-backed Jat goons in Punjab has underlined the way in which feudal violence is desperate to punish every assertion of rights and dignity by agrarian labourers, most of whom are Dalit.....Full text |
Encouraging Expansion in Party Organisation and Activities in Andhra
The AIALA National Conference is being held at Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh. This state has witnessed considerable expansion of the CPI(ML). Report by N. Murthy........Full text
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Shaheed Mela at Bagodar
Comrade Mahendra Singh’s ringing voice resounded on the streets and in the Assembly alike, resolutely raising the issues that few other political forces dared to discuss. On January 16 last year, he was shot dead at the behest of BJP MLA Ravindra Rai and SP Deepak Varma, in a bid to silence his bold voice.On January 16 this year, masses of people thronged to his constituency Bagodar to attend the Shaheed Mela organized by the CPI(ML), followed by the State Conference of Jharkhand Mazdoor Kisan Samiti on the next day.
Manoj Bhakt reports from Bagodar... Full text
Questions that cannot be bought by bribes or silenced by bullets
We carry the following foreword by Dipankar Bhattacharya to a book of Comrade Mahendra’s speeches in the Jharkhand Assembly, Vicharon Ki Yuddh Mein, followed by the text of one of the speeches.... Full text
Agenda for a New State
The following speech was delivered by Comrade Mahendra on the occasion of the Governor’s Maiden Address in the first-ever session of the Jharkhand Assembly on November 24, 2000
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Governor’s address that we are debating now is not just a ceremonial thing. After many decades, a number of new states have been born. How much prosperity our state will attain, how democratic it will become – this depends on all of us, those in the Ruling as well as in the Opposition benches.... Full text
Comrade Anil Kumar Barua
On February 11, 1998, Comrade Anil Barua, Assam State Secretary as well as Central Committee Member of the CPI(ML), was gunned down by the ULFA while addressing a mass meeting of women in Tinsukia as part of his campaign as the CPI(ML) candidate in the Lok Sabha polls. Anil Barua was a poet and a founder of the progressive cultural movement in Assam, as well as founding Secretary of the Sadou Asom Jana Sanskritik Parishad. In tribute to him, we carry a selection of his poems translated from Assamese.........Full text |
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Workers’ Court in Ranchi
With the construction sector emerging as one of the most profitable and expanding industry in the country, the plight of workers associated with it has deteriorated further as a consequence of anti-worker policies of liberalisation being followed by the governments. Ranchi , capital of Jharkhand houses more than thirty thousand such workers who were forced to migrate from their native villages owing to rising unemployment and starvation. This pathetic state of deprivation, forced upon by the government policies, has provided builders and contractors an opportunity to exploit cheap labour. With unlimited working hours, non-transparent payment of wages, non-implementation of labour laws, absence of medical facilities and no regular homestead their life has become miserable. Even exploitation of women workers is a regular phenomenon. ..... Full text |
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Tribute |
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Faiz Ahmed Faiz
February 13 marks the birth anniversary of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Born in Sialkot in Pakistan, his poetry gave voice to many of the tremors and travails experienced by the Indian sub-continent in his lifetime. A member of the Communist Party in undivided India, and one of the architects of the Communist movement in Pakistan, Faiz was jailed several times before and after Independence. In tribute to him, we carry translations of some of poems from the original Urdu.... Full text
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Review |
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Questions of Marxist-Feminist Theory and Practice
Is the domestic labour system not in the economic interest of capitalism? Can one identify a system of patriarchy distinct from that of capitalism? How did the women’s movement in the USA define its stance towards the ‘welfare reform’ policies adopted by the Clinton Government? What kind of arrangements can we imagine for the care of children in a post-revolutionary society?.... Full text
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